Nancy Braus and Ann Darling: Wednesday 'was supposed to be the beginning of the end'

Mar. 17, 2012

The nuclear fuel storage pool is seen in this December 1997 file photo in Vernon, Vt. / File photo

Written by

Nancy Braus and Ann Darling

The month of March has become a lightning rod in the world of nuclear energy, especially in Vermont.

On March 11, we marked one year since the disaster at Fukushima in Japan. Some 250 activists mourned the losses of the victims of the Fukushima disaster by taking part in a mock evacuation from the Vermont Yankee reactor in Vernon to Brattleboro, six miles north, and expressed our determination that the Vermont Yankee nuclear power station will close in the near future.

During the same week of last year, as all eyes were watching Japan, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission rubber-stamped an extension of the operating license for Vermont Yankee for an additional 20 years, as the commission has with every other such application. This happened despite the fact that Vermont Yankee is the same make, model and vintage as the Fukushima reactors that failed so completely to contain deadly radiation when electric power was cut off due to the earthquake and tsunami.

It can happen here, not with a tsunami, but with some other event that cuts off power to the reactor for an extended period of time, or because of any number of other failures inherent in its outdated and faulty design.

This Wednesday was supposed to be the beginning of the end of the nuclear nightmare in our backyard. The state of Vermont's Certificate of Public Good, issued by the Public Service Board, expires on that date, at the end of 40 years of Vermont Yankee's operation.

In our regulated utility environment, our elected state legislators and the regulators whom they appoint are supposed to have the right and the responsibility to determine Vermont's energy future. After years of contentious debate, lobbying and citizen participation, the state Senate voted 26-4 in February 2010 against continued operation of Vermont Yankee, and in following years the Legislature has declined to revisit this vote. These actions represent the voice of democracy.

Entergy, the Louisiana-based mega-corporation that owns the Vermont Yankee reactor, is unwilling to live with the democracy that still thrives in our state.

(Page 2 of 2)

The company has placed slick and often untrue advertising in local media. Entergy has made donations to area nonprofits that appear to have motivated them to provide testimony favorable to Vermont Yankee at NRC and Public Service Board hearings; the nonprofits say Entergy Vermont Yankee is a good corporate citizen, but they do not mention its lies under oath and its contamination of Vermont's groundwater and the Connecticut River.

Entergy and its supporters have used wildly misleading figures to project the level of economic displacement in our region when Vermont Yankee does shut down. Entergy and its advocates spent millions on high-priced legal talent to win a lawsuit in federal court that highlighted the court's corporate bias. Suddenly conversations held by legislators that related to safety — which can be regulated only by the NRC — carried more weight than what actually ended up in the state statute, which was concerned only with Yankee's reliability and corporate transparency.

The message was clear: There is no justice for a small state trying to protect its own environment and people from a well-heeled, well-connected corporation.

Entergy worked in every way to subvert the democratic process, because the facts of old nuclear reactors do not bear out continuing their operation for 20 more years. Vermont Yankee can boast a lengthy list of accidents, including a collapsed cooling tower, a transformer fire, and pipes that leak tritium (radioactive water) into the groundwater and into the Connecticut River.

Instead of fighting Entergy by pouring millions and millions of taxpayer dollars into litigation, we could be advancing the state's renewable energy plans and portfolio. Instead of risking the life and livelihood of our entire region as the result of another Three Mile Island/Chernobyl/Fukushima, we could be developing wind, solar and hydro power, and promoting energy conservation.

Vermonters are unconvinced that a creaky, leaky, over-stressed 40-year-old plant is worth risking the lives of those of us who live in the evacuation zone, and the health of our beautiful rivers, streams and forests. Don't let the industry's "greenwashing" of nuclear power fool you. Nukes are not green; they are deadly, and their waste pollutes forever.

The effort to shut down Vermont Yankee has implications for the protection of our environment, and for the protection of democracy in our nation, Make no mistake: This is huge.

Thursday, members of the SAGE Alliance will be delivering a people's indictment at Entergy Vermont Yankee's headquarters in Brattleboro. If you would like more information about how you can support closing Vermont Yankee and opening the way for a safe and green energy future, please visit www.sagealliance.net, the website of the regional network to shut down VY, and www.safeandgreencampaign.org, the website of the organizing group based within the tri-state evacuation zone of Vermont Yankee.

Nancy Braus is owner/manager of Everyone's Books in Brattleboro. Ann Darling is a 30 year resident of Brattleboro. They both are active in the Safe and Green Campaign.